I don't own a bathroom scale.
No, I'm not crazy, and no, I'm not paranoid. Actually, in all truth, I had a bathroom scale. I broke it. Stepped on it wrong, just after getting it, and cracked the back end so that it never did really weigh properly. We were able to "trick" the thing for a while, standing with our feet forward and on the outer edges, and get a pretty close-to-right reading. When I was pregnant with the twins, it just stopped working altogether. Kaput.
Now, I'm just going to completely gloss over the fact that I stepped on a scale and broke it. I'm going to completely ignore that this was probably the first major thing to pierce my emotions about my weight. I'm going to ignore all of that in this post, and just say that at the time that happened - after the three big boys were born but before we ever even thought about getting pregnant again - I was over 250 pounds. Not far over, but over, and it was the heaviest I'd been in all my life.
And then we moved, became pregnant, found out it was twins, and moved again. At my heaviest, realizing I was within moments of delivering full term twins (full term is a big deal for a twin pregnancy, for those who may not be aware - we were at 37 weeks and 2 days at delivery), I weighed 277. A lot of that was two babies and all the stuff that goes with pregnancy, doubled. A lot of it was not. The day I went home from the hospital, I had lost and then gained some back (swollen crazy legs), and the scale sat at 266.
And now I have no bathroom scale. So I weigh myself when I go to Mom's house. Not every time I go, but seeing as we're only getting out there every few weeks (maybe as little as once a month sometimes), I try to remember to weigh while I'm there. So, though the weight might not be completely accurate, it's at least measured by the same scale.
Thanksgiving of last year, over a year after the twins were born, that scale sat around 256. That's the number I had in my head for the longest time. It was in February when I weighed again and realized that I'd lost quite a bit of weight. By no doing of my own.
Sure, I was (and still am) breastfeeding twins. At that time, I was still having episodes of light headedness and dropped blood sugar problems if I went too long without food. And 4 hours was about my limit, with hot flash and the shakes to prove it. Being toddlers, I was (and still am) exerting plenty of energy in chasing them down and just keeping up with them in general. So, that has to explain my weight loss.
Last week, I weighed myself again. I've continued to lose, for the most part. I've noticed a trend in losing, so I've done a few things here and there to "help" the weight loss along. I figure, my metabolism is ripe for it, so any of those things which are supposed to help should actually kick in and help, and some of them aren't that hard to do, so why not give it a boost? I'd say I have nothing to lose, but actually, I have quite a bit to lose and will be happy to do so, thank you very much!
So, I weighed myself again. After coming down in 10-pound increments for a while now, getting stuck a time or two, and then dropping some more, the scale last week read 217.
Did you see that? Two hundred and seventeen pounds!
I realize that sounds like a lot to most of you, and I will agree that I still have a ways to go. It is less, though, than I have weighed since I got married. I would say before I got pregnant with my second child, which happened a year after the wedding, but really... I didn't weigh myself much during that first 4 months, when I was on birth control for the first time and working at McDonald's for overtime. And changing uniforms 3 times.
When I got pregnant with Drew, I weighed 222. I'd gained around 80 pounds in that first year of marriage. (Gulp!!) I now weigh less than that.
I don't hold out hope of reaching the under-150 mark ever again. To be honest, though, I will be ecstatic to be under 200 again. I think 180, or 175 might be a reasonable goal. I'd be thrilled with 160, and satisfied.
I'll say this though. I'm not doing it. I remember, though I can't recall exactly when it was, I remember asking the Lord to help me with this. To change my habits, slowly, one at a time, so that I would lose weight and be healthy. I asked him to cause the weight to fall AND to retrain my habits so that it would stay off.
Every time I remember that, the scale falls a little further. It's not me, and though I'm completely sure He absolutely uses the resources available - namely, the breastfeeding and chasing twins, as well as my own willingness to change the smaller things - but it's God Almighty who does all things for His glory.
And so it is to Him I give the glory, for it would not be so without His hand of blessing. Thank you, Lord!
